The Italian Banking Association (ABI) has revealed that the country's banks will be using distributed ledger technology (DLT) to run its reconciliations as of March 2020, making it the first use of the blockchain among Italy's banks.
The move is part of the Spunta Project, a programme managed by ABI Lab, the association's research and innovation arm, designed to implement DLT within the country's interbank processes.
It is hoped that the migration to a blockchain will result in full visibility of the transactions between banks, daily rather than monthly reconciliations, and more effective communication between counterparties in the event of an exception.
News of the DLT move, comes on the back of the ABI's latest survey on the use of IT in Italy's banking sector which reveals that investments in IT increased by 5.7% in 2018 continuing a trend that began in 2014.
The survey also showed that 88.5% of the survey's respondents have an IT budget either in line with or exceeding its 2018 budget. Furthermore, spending is primarily directed towards digital channels and mobile banking services, outward expansion, infrastructure upgrades, data governance initiatives and the management and mitigation of cyber risk.